5 Digital Marketing Tips To Increase Your Brand's Growth Online And Improve Ad Results

1. Clear Call-To-Actions

Buy Now, Book A Flight, Request A Quote--Whatever next step you want the user to take (which is typically the objective of your campaign) should be vibrantly displayed in your content.

Every successful advertising campaign contains a clear and compelling call-to-action (CTA). This “button” tells the user what the next step is and is how they get from the advertisement back to your site, moving them further down the funnel and closer to the point of conversion.

When it comes to selecting a CTA, you want to focus on language that is relevant to your brand, service or products, and completely obvious to the user. Anything ambiguous can confuse the user, and even if they click on the CTA, arriving to an onsite page that doesn’t meet their expectations won’t result in a conversion. That being said, you want to avoid generic language like “learn more” or “read more”—while this can be relevant to what you’re promoting, it isn’t unique to your brand, or even your respective industry.

Image Credit: Jet Blue

Jet Blue's digital ads feature compelling call-to-actions and unique messaging.

JetBlue uses language tailored to their industry and brand in their digital ads, as seen above.

In the example below, Sotheby’s has a beautiful digital ad campaign that promotes different destinations. The imagery is striking (another must-have for successful digital advertising), the text is readable, and it’s ultimately a clean design. However, there is no real CTA. As a user, I could of course click on the ad and be directed to their site, but there is no real incentive to do so and no real button showing me what step to take next. Simply adding a CTA button to this ad would likely improve the performance of these campaigns and result in higher conversions.

Image Credit: Sotheby's International Realty

One of Sotheby's digital advertisements is featured here.

 

2. Compelling Messaging

It should come as no surprise that messaging is important. With any digital platform, messaging is critical as it’s the core communication with a potential customer. In terms of digital advertising, when you don’t have a ton of copy space or even time to capture user attention it’s important that messaging be compelling and, most importantly, succinct.

You lose the attention of most digital users in just a few seconds. That limited period of time is all that you have to capture interest. Stick to messaging that evokes emotion or encourages the users to click through the ad, and keep it to just a short phrase. For many brands, this means highlighting their value proposition, showcasing their core values, or defining an incentive for the user.

Image Credit: Biotherm

Biotherm uses compelling messaging to encourage users to make a purchase.

In the example above, Biotherm incentivizes the experience for the potential customer. Their core message “Enjoy Free Shipping + 25% Off All Orders” captures the user’s attention and for someone already interested in their products, it’s likely to be that last added touch to convert. For all brands, this is an incredibly well done ad to take notes from. If you’re running a retargeting campaign where the user has already visited your site, for example, this type of incentivization could not only help you stay top of mind as the potential customer navigates other sites, but can serve as the final touchpoint before the user finally makes the purchase.

 

3. Designated Landing Pages

Whatever the content you’re advertising is related to, you should always drive users to a page that is relevant to that content. This simple step will help to keep users on your site, offer a better user experience, and ultimately improve conversion rate.

If you’re an athletics brand and you’re advertising women’s running shoes in an AdWords campaign, sending users to your women’s running shoes page will help facilitate the conversion process. The more relevant the page is that you drive clicks to, the greater likelihood that the user will follow though and convert. 

After all, your advertisement has captured that user’s attention enough that they clicked on the ad, so the likelihood is they want more information pertaining to that specific subject – not general information you’d find about your brand and entire line of athletic attire on your homepage.

Sending users to your homepage instead of a designated landing page that is correlated to the particular campaign can be a costly mistake. Users generally won’t search or navigate your site in search for the item they’re looking for. As a brand, bringing the potential customer as close as possible to their unique needs and the point of conversion is not only the best approach, but also the best user experience.

 

4. Imagery Matters

For each of your digital campaigns, it’s essential that you think about where you’re serving users with these ads. The likelihood is that the ad will appear while the user is absorbing other content somewhere else online, so the way your ad appears visually is important.

Using high-quality imagery that is telling as to what the ad promotes is one of the most important features for all successful digital advertising campaigns. Failure to use imagery that is captivating or visually-appealing doesn’t help capture the user’s attention. In the example below, Waldorf Astoria uses beautiful photos of their resorts to advertise to a targeted set of users. Not only does this stand out as the user scrolls through the page, it truly sparks interest.

Image Credit: Waldorf Astoria

Waldorf Astoria's beautiful imagery helps to enhance ad effectiveness.

For brands in the B2B space, or in industries where imagery may not be as “naturally” beautiful as a beachfront resort, there are still options. Focus on imagery that is bold, clean, and compelling. In a lot of ways, imagery should tell the story your brand is trying to convey and give the user a solid expectation of what you have to offer. This is especially important for new or potential customers that may not be familiar with your brand. If the imagery in your ads doesn’t stand out, they may not even recognize your brand or your products if they see them later on a different platform.

 

5. Test, Monitor, And Test Again

You’ve probably heard it said many times, that for any marketing channel, testing the effectiveness of your efforts is important. When you’re running digital advertising campaigns, this is no exception. 

Without monitoring your campaigns, how are you able to identify areas to continue focusing on versus areas for improvement?

Sometimes, seemingly arbitrary factors like time of day, language choice, audience segment, or image selection can really play a role in the success of your campaigns. For that reason, it’s critical that you pay attention to these factors and monitor which campaigns have which varying elements. If you’re finding success with one campaign, or finding an alternate campaign to be less effective, don’t be afraid to change it. A/B testing with digital ads, where you test ads with varying content, can be incredibly telling in which messaging or content resonates best with your audience—and often for reasons you can’t foresee.

Also, testing your ads before you implement them is critical. More times than I’d like, I’ve seen brands with fantastic ads pointing to the wrong pages, 404 pages, or with messaging targeted to an audience that I’m mistakenly segmented in. Take the time to make sure your ads are appearing as they should and are directing users to the right pages. When little mistakes like this happen, not only have you wasted the resources spent for this particular campaign, you’ve also adversely impacted the user-experience. This extra moment of testing can save your company a lot of money in the long run.

Driving Results With Digital Ad Campaigns
In this day and age, digital advertising holds a ton of potential. For most brands, it’s one of the most effective ways to get your company, products, or services, in front of a qualified and targeted user. However, if you’re not following the right guidelines to make your digital advertising the most impactful, the likelihood is that you won’t garner the results you’d most like to see. Keep in mind the above tips when crafting your campaigns and optimizing your conversion rate.

What do you do? What do you need help with? 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/gabrielshaoolian/2017/04/24/5-digital-marketing-tips-to-increase-your-brands-growth-online-and-improve-ad-results/#721b50c67494 

7 Quick & Dirty Ways to Grow a Fan Base on Facebook

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These are really cool, easy to apply tips to grow your Facebook fan base. 

Growing a fan base on Facebook ain't easy.
And it's especially hard if you're trying to grow a fan base for a new page.
5 years ago new pages could grow quickly & organically -- because there were so few pages competing for attention in the news feed.
But nowadays if you want to grow a high-quality, engaged fan base, you need to plan well & execute well
How do you do this? What are the steps for making it happen?
Let me show you 7 ways I've used myself.

7 Quick & Dirty Ways to Grow a Fan Base on Facebook

I recently stumbled across a Kissmetrics infographic from 2011 called "The Importance of a Fan Base".
The stats are old, but the general concept holds true today:

Let's walk through these steps one by one.

 

1. Define Your Target Market

Every business should know its ideal customer BEFORE getting started on Facebook.
Remember -- not all 1.2 billion Facebook users represent your target customer.
For example, I run an inflatable "bounce house" business on the weekends -- renting out bounce houses in my area.
My ideal customers are women with kids living within 10 miles of my house. I target women instead of men because women are usually the ones planning the parties & making the buying decisions.
With these criteria in mind, I buy Facebook ads to promote my page & target women within 10 miles of my home who are between the ages of 25 & 45.
This screenshot from my page shows I've targeted the right demographic:

86% of my fans are women -- and 60% are women between the ages of 25 & 44.

According to this screenshot, about 7,400 Facebook users live within 10 miles.

And about 1,580 of those people are women between the ages of 25 & 45:

Try using this same technique on your page to find the target market for your company.
Remember -- finding the right kind of fans is essential if you want to use Facebook to drive sales. And targeting helps you find the right kinds of fans.
Personally, I'd rather have 100 targeted fans who engage with my posts than 10,000 fans who Liked my page but never comment or share a post.

2. Get the Tone Right

Now that you've defined your target audience, you need to start talking to them -- using the posts on your page.
While communicating with fans you should:

• speak like them
• think like them
• act like them

Using my bounce house business as an example, if my target customer is a young mom in my area, I need to post things that appeal to young moms.
I shouldn't post about stuff not happening locally or things that appeal mostly to men or people without kids.
So to build trust with my fans, I design my posts to appeal to my target market.

Read this article for more info about defining a voice & tone for your Facebook posts:

• Does Your Facebook Content Strategy Begin with this Crucial 1st Step?

3. Identify Which Posts Spur the Most Engagement

Every Facebook page is unique & posts that work on one page may not get engagement on another page.
That's why it's important to test what works & what doesn't.
I do this on all my pages to see what content works best. When I see a post has been successful, I plan a similar post in the future.
If a post bombs -- that type of post is dead to me (at least for that particular page).
Facebook status ideas that repeatedly spark response from fans include:

• Questions -- people love to answer yes/no or similar 1-word answers (just keep it relevant)
• Photos -- pictures always win on Facebook because the website is so visual
• Fill-in-the-Blanks -- these allow for a quick answer on light-hearted topics
• Contests -- Facebook contests typically do well with targeted fans (don't use contests too often & make sure prizes are relevant to your page)

4. Remember it's a Long-Term Investment

With a Facebook page, it's not "If You Build It They Will Come" -- that only works in a Kevin Costner movie!
Successful social media marketing takes time, hard work & patience.
In my case, I spent about $150 on Facebook ads growing the bounce house page to 400 targeted Likes.
So far, about 90% of my business has come from Facebook!
Since starting the business last October my total revenue is about $3k -- and most of those sales came from boosting posts & finding Likes on Facebook.
Over the next few months, I expect the initial $150 investment in my page to pay off big time -- even if I just rent 1 bounce house per week.
So continue building your page & maintaining strong relationships with fans.
And remember -- those not buying today will know about your brand when they need to make a purchase somewhere down the road.

5. Keep it Real, Relaxed & Relevant

I love the 3 R's.
While building your fan base you gotta keep things real, relaxed & relevant.

Don't get frustrated when sales don't immediately come. For heaven's sake, don't start blasting promotional posts every hour thinking that's the best way to drum up business.
You'll only chase away high-quality fans & blow your budget in the process.
Instead, try a post a day in the beginning. Don't overwhelm fans by flooding the news feed right out of the gate.
Give fans a chance to get to know, like & trust you -- then start posting more often.
Consistency is important, but quality should be your top priority if you hope to grow a high-quality fan base.

6. Stick to a Schedule

As a page manager, the worst thing you can do -- especially in the beginning -- is post sporadically.

Two posts Monday, 4 on Tuesday, none Wednesday, 7 posts on Thursday & nothing on the weekend...
Sound familiar?
Stop it! This won't help your page.
Set up a schedule with times during the day when you want to post.
I'm experimenting with 2 posts a day on my bounce house page -- 1 in the morning & 1 in at night. And I usually post images or text updates.
I use Post Planner's Queue feature so I know I'm not posting too often & that posts are scheduled in advance:

I repost the same 15 images in my queue rotation using the Re-Queue feature, and I mix in text updates to get more interaction from fans.
The Queue feature lets me create a post & add it to my Queue -- filling the next available spot in line.
I arrange the times (as shown above), then enter my post & click the "Queue" button:

Once it's planned, you'll see a dimmed green icon with a circular arrow on the right side of your post.

Click that icon & it turns bright green -- signaling that your post is set to "Re-Queue".

Now whenever the post publishes, an exact replica of it is recreated & sent to the end of the Queue again -- to land in the next available open spot.

This feature works great for re-posting evergreen content like blog posts, infographics, podcasts & ebooks.

The Queue saves me the headache of having to remember which times to post at -- and the Re-Queue guarantees I'll always have content posting to my page.

Every 10 days or so I replace the Re-Queue posts with fresh content.

A posting schedule is critical for any successful Facebook page. Just decide what & when you're going to post -- then stick to it.

7. Monitor & Measure

By now we've committed to:

• define our target audience
• use the proper tone in our posts
• post the kinds of updates that get the most engagement
• follow the 3 R's -- Real, Relaxed & Relevant
• and stick to a schedule

Now what?!
Sit back & evaluate what works. Take some time once a month to explore your page's Insights. Identify what worked & what didn't.
I can't tell you what strategies are best for you -- because every page is different.
But if a post gets ZERO engagement, obviously that technique didn't work & it's time to make some adjustments.

Just make sure you are reviewing the results at least once every 30 days.

Time to Grow Your Fan Base!

Now that you have these 7 tips for growing your fan base, it's time to apply them to your page.
And if you're really smart, you'll apply these same principles to your efforts on Twitter, Google+ & Pinterest too.

Scott Ayres
https://www.postplanner.com/7-ways-to-grow-a-fan-base-on-facebook/